Traditions Don't Last Forever
by WiseGryffindor
Summary: Written for Round 3 of Season 7 of the QFLC. What will happen when Draco announces his intention to marry Hermione?


**Write about a character that breaks a familial or societal tradition **

**(action) dancing the tango**

**(setting) on a farm**

Malfoy Manor looked very different in the light of day. The building cast a dark shadow across the spacious garden that surrounded Malfoy manor. Draco's hand grasped Hermione's in an offering of comfort. The ten year anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts was coming up later that year. Many things had changed; laws, people's opinions, the people themselves, but not everyone had changed. Draco's father was among those that resisted change. Since the war Draco saw little of his family, they disagreed with his political stance among others. The only reason Draco and his fiancé, Hermione Granger, were here today was at her insistence. She believed that Draco needed his family, she wasn't wrong but Draco would never admit it.

They crossed the wards without problem. The wards recognized the heir to the Malfoy name and his fiancé. The door was only a few steps away when Hermione froze, her breathing speeding up. Draco squeezed her hand and they walked to the door. Draco raised his hand and struck the door, twice. He planted a kiss on Hermione's head before turning back towards the door. Slowly the grand door swung open. In the giant opening stood a tiny house elf.

"The master and mistress will see you in the living room," the elf said, a tremor in its voice. The couple followed the elf through the giant manor. It was like a maze. Hermione gazed about in awe, while Draco just looked thoughtful.

"Draco? Why are you here? You never visit," Narcissa Malfoy said, not seeing Hermione.

It was Lucius who saw her first. "You dare bring a Mudblood into the sacred home of the Malfoy's!" he growled. Draco clenched his fists his face turning red.

"You. Do. Not. Call. Her. That. Ever!" Draco's teeth ground together.

Draco's mother tried to get the two visitors to sit down but they politely refused, having the feeling that they wouldn't be there for long. Hermione rubbed her palms against her pants. She took a single breath in. Then one out. Draco trailed his hand up her arm and down until it reached the small of her back.

"Hermione and I are engaged," Draco spoke evenly, just waiting for an outburst from his father.

"No. You can't be. I... I forbid it! You would be ruining centuries of tradition," His father said his ears turning more red with every word. He took a deep breath before continuing. "No. You may not marry this—this _girl_. You will not taint this bloodline with impure blood!"

"Then we shall be leaving," Draco said, turning on his heel. He guided Hermione out of the tension-filled room.

It was much later when the couple returned to the quaint farm they had been living on for the past year and a half. They lived in a modern farmhouse and lived mostly off the land. They had chickens and an extensive garden. Once a week they would go into the nearby Muggle town and get the groceries they couldn't produce themselves. Draco would floo to his office every day and Hermione would floo to the ministry and work on new laws and legislation. Their work was the reason they had met again after Hogwarts.

It had happened about two years earlier. Draco had developed a new version of the Wolfsbane potion and was looking to get it legalized. Hermione had been working on rewriting the werewolf legislation. They had simply run into each other and, once they began talking, and it just took off from there.

"Are you sad that your parents don't accept us as a couple?"

"I kinda expected it, to be honest."

"I'm sorry, Draco."

An owl knocked its head on the window. Swiftly, Hermione retrieved the letter, as Draco had frozen. The owl flew away.

"Draco, it's from your mother."

"Open it."

_Draco,_

_I am very sorry about your father's reaction. Even I didn't realize he was so stuck in the past. Please forgive him, it was how we were both raised. Congratulations on your engagement to Miss Granger. Can we talk? I would like to be a part of your life, my son._

_Sincerely,_

_Narcissa Malfoy_

"What should I do? Should I meet with my mother?"

"Why don't you invite her for tea?"

"That would work, I'll write her a note."

When Narcissa Malfoy arrived at her son's home, she was taken aback by the size. It was so tiny. The land surrounding it was beautiful though, there were lovely gardens and a house that seemed to have once been a red barn/a red barn standing next to a small cottage. She knocked on the solid wood door. A second later Hermione opened the door and let her in. Draco led his mother to the sitting room with Hermione following close behind.

"How have you been, Draco?"

"Good, how about you mother?"

"I am doing well."

Draco and Hermione took their normal seats and Draco's mom sat opposite them. A tense silence filled the room. No one seemed to know what to say.

"Mother, will you go to mine and Hermione's wedding?"

"Of course I will! You are my only child, I wouldn't miss it for the world."

"Really?"

"Draco, I love you more than anyone else in the world. I want you to be happy, and Miss Granger makes you happy. Now, have you set the date yet?" Draco's face turned pale.

"I'll go get some tea, why don't you discuss it with Hermione." The two women started to talk about wedding plans as Draco escaped to the kitchen.

"Why is the tango going to be your first dance as a married couple?"

"Because that was the first dance we ever danced together, do you remember that Draco?"

"How could I forget?"

"Look at the time, I must be going."

"Of course mother. I will see you out."

"It was nice to meet you, Narcissa."

"It was nice to meet you as well. We must have tea again." Draco walked his mother out to the Apparition point, where she apparated away.

"Lucius Malfoy, you are going to that wedding whether you want to or not!"

"He is breaking the Malfoy's most important tradition, always marry another pureblood."

"I will not let you ruin my relationship with my son!"

"Then don't let it."

"Are you even listening?"

"Yes."

"You are going and will not cause trouble or do anything of the sort. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"Promise me."

"I promise."

"Hermione stop worrying, everything will be perfect," Draco soothed his worried wife. They were getting married in just a few hours. Hermione was having a mini panic attack. The couple had decided that they wouldn't be separated on their wedding day. Narcissa had had a fit about it.

It was five minutes before the ceremony was planned to begin that things started to go wrong. Hermione had tripped in the five-inch heels that Narcissa had insisted on her wearing. Fixing it magically would take at least twenty minutes due to the complexity of the spells woven into the apparel, and by then they would have missed sunset. Hermione decided that she would just walk very carefully and slowly and have Harry—who was taking her father's place because he had been killed during the war—support most of her weight. There was just one thing they had left to do, tell Draco. He took it well but said that right after the ceremony they were calling in an expert to fix it.

Draco stood in a Muggle suit at the end of the aisle. His best friend Theodore Nott stood by his side as his best man. The officiator for the wedding was Susan Bones, a girl who had become close friends for both Draco and Hermione. The wedding march began playing and everyone stood, obscuring Draco's view of his wife-to-be. It was Luna he saw first, she was Hermione's maid of honour. She was wearing a very Muggle dress that was a pale gold. Just behind her was Hermione, who was slightly limping. She had a death grip on Harry's arm. He couldn't breathe for a second, she looked like a goddess. Her hair was in a twist causing it to cascade down her back. Her face bore no makeup, something Draco was glad about—he had always thought that she looked better without it. Her dress was like nothing he had ever seen before. It was an off white with gold highlights running through it.

Very carefully Harry helped Hermione onto the raised platform and everyone sat down.

"Treat her right or I will come after you," Harry said to Draco as he handed him Hermione's hand. Then the vows began. They had decided not to use the traditional vows that almost everyone used. Instead, they had come up with their own.

"Draco Malfoy, when we were younger we didn't quite see eye to eye. Sometimes even now we don't. You are my life, my saviour, my love. I love you more than the world itself."

"Hermione Granger, you have always been stubborn and without this stubbornness, we would never have gotten together. I would never have had the courage to ask you out, yet you had it to ask me out. When we met you saw more than the mark that will forever scar my arm, you saw me as a person who had made a mistake. You are the light of my world. My love for you has no boundaries."

"Do you, Hermione Jean Granger, take Draco Lucius Malfoy to be your lawfully wedded husband?"

"I do."

"Do you, Draco Lucius Malfoy, take Hermione Jean Granger to be your lawfully wedded wife?"

"I do."

And that was how the blood purity tradition of the Malfoy's was broken. Not with a bang but a whisper.


End file.
